


Games of Chance

by Fahye



Series: Lines on Palms [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 09:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5823553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fahye/pseuds/Fahye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You'll tie yourself in knots," Damen says, unable to keep the fondness from his voice any longer, "with how clever you are."</i>
</p><p> </p><p>In the midst of the Akielon harvest festival, Damen makes his way through Laurent's latest game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Games of Chance

**Author's Note:**

> With only a week to go until the release of King's Rising, I wanted to revisit this fandom and this pairing :) This is a sequel to Lines on Palms; I recommend reading that first, for context on the canon divergence.
> 
> Thalysia is an ancient Greek festival of Demeter, which I have appropriated and embellished for my own purposes.

"I hope His Highness is not seriously unwell," Damen says.

The young courtier gives another bow. He has the nervous look of one who was not expecting to be apologising for his prince's absence in front of the entire Akielon court.

"It is nothing dangerous," he says, "and the royal physician expects it to pass swiftly, but the condition, ah, precludes travel."

Gods preserve us if he starts discussing the royal bowels, Damen thinks.

"I have been assured he will ride south to Ios with the other half of his guard within two days. I am sure he wishes nothing better than to be here with Your Royal Highness," the courtier adds, in a gallant but unfortunate attempt at improvisation.

Damen can see several members of the court exchanging suggestive looks. He carefully hides his own smile.

"It will be a joy to see Prince Laurent again," he says with complete honesty, "whenever he arrives. And in the meantime, I'm glad to welcome the rest of you."

"His Highness is aware," the courtier continues with more confidence, "that the First Night of your festival of Thalysia is counted the most important, and so he instructed the rest of the envoy to ride on ahead."

Damen can't resist glancing at Orlant, standing stony-faced in the small Veretian group. This half of Laurent's guard, protective to a fault, wouldn't have liked those orders. But Laurent can talk anyone into anything.

"The other reason for our haste is that the Prince wished to present to you a gift, in honour of the occasion and as a contribution towards the entertainment of First Night."

The gift is a group of musical performers, apparently renowned in Vere, and currently contracted to Laurent's own service. These are extracted from the Veretian group and presented to Damen's eyes, with a great deal of elegant prostration and flashing brocade. The performers are three young men and three women. Each of them is opulently dressed--in laced and draped Veretian layers of expensive material rather than the usual excess of chains and gems and precious metals, in what Damen assumes is deference to the chill of the turning Akielon season--and their faces are extravagantly painted.

Every one of them is slender and fair, though none of them have Laurent's unique and brilliant yellow hair.

Damen is conscious of many pairs of eyes upon him. It is a very Laurent kind of gift.

"They will of course return with us to Vere at the end of this visit, but His Highness is anxious for you to enjoy their skills."

"How thoughtful of him," Damen says.

First Night festivities are held outdoors, no matter the weather, but in most years the rains are merciful and do not descend upon Ios until later in the season. More common are nights like this one, where the sky is a high chilly blanket that sprawls and exposes its treasury of stars. In the largest clear space between the palace and its outer walls, the servants of the royal household have spent two days constructing bonfires and erecting tents for food and drink.

Damen glances up at the pale bulk of the palace's columns, towards the wing where his father will be lying, no doubt with his bed turned towards the window so that he can see the smoke and the stars and hear the merriment of another year proceeding with joyful dignity towards death.

"We have our own harvest festivals." Matieu, the Veretian Ambassador to Akielos, speaks from his position at Damen's side. His accent is still strong, but his Akielon impeccable. "Though I have to admit, I like the _colour_ in yours."

Damen smiles. Lord Genalt was recalled to Arles, not long after Laurent's first visit to Akielos for the wedding of Damen's cousin, and Matieu was his replacement. The eldest son of one of Auguste's senior advisors, Matieu is unflinchingly loyal to Laurent, despite being a decade older than his prince. He has a tempered version of Laurent's dry sense of humour, admires the Akielon style of pleasure-slaves with every appearance of authenticity, and is the most unapologetic and friendly spy Damen has ever met.

Damen likes him.

Heat from the bonfires stretches upwards with visible fingers of haze, blurring the stars. At intervals, slaves throw handfuls of powder onto the blazing piles, and the flames leap higher in tongues of colour: green, purple, yellow, blue. The smells of roasting meat and spices are everywhere.

The crowd of the court forms a loose ring to watch the performances. It's clear nobody told the Veretian performers that the circular staging is an expected part of this festival, but they're unflappably professional as they walk into the centre and arrange themselves facing the slight rise of the royal dais.

Laurent's musicians are, even Damen can admit, excellent. The music is intricate and fast, a four-part vocal harmony backed by a drum and one of the women's nimble fingers on the strings of the guiterne. Damen's Veretian is fine for conversational purposes, but the singing blurs the words together. After a while he gives up trying to follow the words--as far as he can tell, it's a rambling romantic narrative with enough heft in the rhythm to suggest it was originally sung while working fields, very suitable for a harvest festival--and lets the music wash over him.

"You'd tell me if this was something inappropriate, wouldn't you?" he murmurs to Matieu.

Matieu gives a quick smile. "You really don't trust him, do you?"

Damen passes his eyes deliberately over the musicians. The singers are too occupied with breathing to do much more than straighten their postures in response, but the drummer smiles proudly and the guiterne player flicks him a look that's bordering on flirtatious.

"Can you blame me?" Damen says.

The group performs two more songs, then pack up their instruments and scatter into the crowd to be praised and admired. From what Damen knows and has seen of Vere, not all performers of this kind are also the pets of aristocrats, but he suspects most of these ones are. Or have been.

"Did you wish to speak to any of them, Your Highness?" asks Matieu, half-lifting a hand.

"No, thank you," Damen says. He doesn't have to pretend anything; the man won't take it as an insult to Laurent's gift. "If Laurent's contract for their service is due to expire soon, then I suppose that potential patrons in a friendly court are good contacts for them to make."

The ambassador says dryly, "Or, if they are in Laurent's employ, they may have instructions beyond entertainment."

Damen looks around. The youngest of the men, who threw his surprisingly high voice soaring through the melodies, has accepted a seat next to the smitten-looking Miltiades. Off to Damen's left on the dais, the guiterne player is laughing and tilting her body coquettishly as Kastor gestures to a slave to pass her a cup of mulled wine.

Another slave offers, at Damen's hand, to refill his own. Damen waves them on. First Night is traditionally an excuse for excess, but he would prefer to keep his head clear for the moment.

The night stretches on, with recitations and songs and every type of entertainment. Despite the fires, the wind sweeping inland from the ocean grows colder, and slaves fetch fur cloaks for their masters, or ladle them out yet more cups of wine from the steaming, spice-smelling pots.

The final performance is traditional: a dance of slaves whose choreography is older than most buildings in this city. It tells a story. The harvest festival of Thalysia, the turning of the season to longer nights and crisper days, the bounty of fertile fields, as the daughter of the goddess willingly leaves her mother's sunlit lands behind in order to spend a glad half-year in the arms of her husband.

Damen makes a point of speaking once more with the Veretians before the festivities break up. The young courtier pushed into speaking for the envoy is now somewhat the worse for drink, and smiles widely as he clasps Damen's hand in what is either enthusiastic thanks or aid with his balance.

"It's bad luck that your master had to miss this," Damen says to Orlant, when he passes the man on his way back inside the palace.

The soldier bows. Damen can't find any clues in his face. "Yes, Your Highness."

Instead of heading straight for his rooms, Damen goes to the baths reserved for the royal family. It has been a long day, and the odours of smoke and food cling to his skin. He wades waist-deep into the warmed water, where Eunike, one of his favourite slaves, washes him carefully and offers her further services with an exquisite, gentle grace. Damen smiles down into her warm brown eyes, but dismisses her just as gently.

He wraps and tucks the long square of a chiton around his waist instead of bothering to pin it. With his hair still sending sly drops of water down the grooves of his neck, Damen makes his way through the private hall connecting these baths to his suite of rooms. He's already arranged for someone to deliver the Thalysian nut-and-honey pastries to the guards who must have thrown poorly at dice, to be serving sober and alert duty outside the Crown Prince's rooms on First Night.

There are candles and lamps providing warmth and illumination, but the air streaming through the window is fresh like chilled water on Damen's bare shoulders, and he inhales deeply. He pauses with his hands on the shutters, gazing out into the gardens, and glances down to where the building angles into a corner and the side of a ledge is just within leaping range.

"You needn't bother," says a voice from the room behind him.

Damen finishes his exhale. Beneath his fingertips the wood is ridged, rough, and neither cool nor warm.

"I had no idea," Damen says, "that you could play the guiterne."

He turns around. A slender figure with a loose, looping head of dark blonde hair is seated on one of the low couches in the centre of the room, frowning in concentration as one pin after another comes free. There is a _plink_ sound as each metal hair pin is dropped to the marble floor. A pair of cool blue eyes meet Damen's.

"Oh, hadn't you heard?" says Laurent. "I'm the ornamental one."

Last pin removed, Laurent tugs the wig clear. It follows the pins to the floor, revealing his own startling hair to the lustful eyes of the lamps, which strike up from it the expensive shine of a gold coin.

At the sight of him Damen's chest is, for a long moment, once again full of aching smoke. Laurent holds his gaze without changing expression, and stands up.

Next to be removed are the laced sleeves and gauzy wraps that were the top half of Laurent's costume, disguising the flat planes of his chest. Laurent's movements are unhurried, though not entirely unselfconscious, as he reveals inch after inch of skin. When he's naked to the waist, he kicks the fabric to lie in a pile beneath the couch. What remains is a long red skirt that hugs his hips and falls to the floor.

Damen is throbbing with the need to touch Laurent, to draw him close and kiss him. But Laurent looks as poised and self-contained as ever, with the extra edge of brilliance that means he's pleased with himself. It invites admiration, but not touch.

"How did I do?" Laurent inquires.

Damen lifts a hand and gives a ripple of his fingers, a show-fighter's signal of ambivalence. He doesn't bother to hide his enjoyment when this creates a near-invisible pinch in Laurent's brow.

" _What_ ," Laurent says.

"A female Veretian pet wouldn't approach a man."

Laurent gives Damen one of his odd, appraising looks. It's even odder coming from a face that looks both rounder and more vivid than it should, through masterful use of bronzer and paint.

"She might, in Akielos, if she were clever."

"You'll tie yourself in knots," Damen says, unable to keep the fondness from his voice any longer, "with how clever you are. What would you have done if you were recognised?"

"Improvise," Laurent says.

Laurent, who plans four steps ahead. Damen laughs. "I don't believe you."

The corner of Laurent's mouth deepens. "I have been cultivating," he says, "something of a reputation for eccentricity."

He says it like a scholar holding a poorly-penned essay by one corner. Damen sweeps his eyes deliberately down Laurent's body and back up again--unable to resist lingering with a flare of hunger on the trim waist and the lightly muscled shoulders--and ends with a pointed look at Laurent's hair, mussed by the wig, and his painted face.

"Of course, nothing could be further from the truth," Damen says. Pleasure glows within him when that corner of Laurent's mouth feints almost all the way towards a smile. "I assume this particular game had a purpose beyond your own amusement."

"Your bastard half-brother tells very bad jokes," Laurent says.

Damen does not say, _my father is dying_. Laurent already knows.

"We're going to talk about Kastor," Damen says, resigned.

"Yes."

"Can it keep until tomorrow?"

Damen is prepared to hear _no_. He is prepared to spend the night creeping in darkness around his own palace, or poring by lamplight over copies of letters while Laurent dissects alliances and secrets in his cool voice. He is prepared to paint his own face and nod when told that they are to join a troupe of players in the city for some new, mad scheme.

Laurent of Vere is nothing if not unpredictable, and Damen would probably do anything he asked.

"Yes," Laurent says. "It can keep."

By now Damen has seen the way Laurent holds himself in the sword ring, perfectly balanced and coiled. He has seen the danger in the cold, impeccable stillness that signals strong emotion being mastered, and the quieter poise Laurent assumes in his brother's court: the studious prince, not quite ornamental, but easy for unknowing eyes to dismiss when Auguste is shining so brightly in the same room.

None of them are lies, precisely. All of them are variations on the same person.

But Damen has not seen this particular walk before. There is a subtle emphasis on the hips as Laurent crosses the room to stand in front of Damen, and an almost submissive curve to Laurent's neck. It makes Damen wary enough that he doesn't reach out, as he longs to do; he does not close his arm around the elegance of Laurent's forearm. He does not bend his own neck and tongue hungrily along the line of Laurent's collarbone where the skin has a gleam more artificial than sweat, as though it has been brushed with shimmering powder.

"Does it meet with Your Highness's approval?" Laurent says. His voice is both tart and sweet, his accent more densely Veretian than Damen has ever heard it.

Part of Damen wants to laugh. Another part whispers, urgently: all of his games have a purpose.

"The music?" Damen says.

Laurent is very close now, dipping his darkened lashes, so different to his usual austere appearance.

"Yes," he says in that voice like citrus cake drenched in syrup. "Of course, the music."

It's an unnervingly good portrait of an ambitious pet angling for royal attention. Damen shakes off the last of the oddness and accepts the unspoken invitation to play along.

"You're very sure of yourself." He reaches out and touches, finally, a proprietary hand cupping Laurent's jaw.

Laurent turns his face into it. A triumphant smile thins his lips and Damen has less than a second to brace himself before Laurent falls, fastidious and graceful, to his knees. Damen's heart gives an absurd pound of something that is very like panic.

"I'm glad to have made myself so agreeable to the illustrious Crown Prince of noble Akielos,"

Laurent's accent dissolves consonants into their preceding vowels. Damen bites down on telling him that his vocabulary is too good for this character.

And then what he's biting is his tongue, all words having fled, because Laurent smooths his hands up the sides of Damen's thighs, and leans in to tease at Damen with his hot breath. Damen can't tear his eyes away. There's something about the knowledge that it's Laurent underneath that makes this act staggeringly, instantly arousing.

Damen's no actor, but he's prepared to be led. And he feels a dark stab of curiosity about how far Laurent will take this.

"You must have many admirers vying for your services, in Arles."

"None of your stature," Laurent murmurs. He makes no move either to lift the chiton or to tug it down. Instead he gives slow nudges of his nose and mouth at where Damen is stirring beneath the folds of linen.

"I," Damen says, and can't keep going.

Laurent's brows quirk and he splays his hands on the backs of Damen's knees. Then moves them upwards, slowly, a feather-light contact up Damen's thighs that climbs and climbs and--

Damen comes up hard and fast at the end of his self-control's chain, which is much shorter than Laurent's. He gets a firm hand at the back of Laurent's neck, hauls him upright and presses him face-first against the wall. Laurent gives a sharp huff of surprise which would sound more genuine if Damen didn't know just how difficult it is to get Laurent to go anywhere or do anything if he sets his will against it.

He releases some of the pressure, testing. Laurent, standing with palms on the wall where he threw them out to catch himself, stays where he is.

Damen can't think properly. The scent of Laurent's skin and hair is familiar and heady. Damen is greedy with it, with the solid and undeniable fact of Laurent's body beneath his hands, laid out like an offering. He moves his hands down Laurent's nape, down the firm circle of his ribcage and around, stepping in close enough that his chest can feel the heat radiating from Laurent's back, mapping skin like a blind man.

Then he drops his head and laughs into the angle of Laurent's neck.

"You were doing so well," says Laurent, after a moment.

"I'm sorry," Damen says, still laughing. "I prefer you as yourself."

He's standing with his hands resting low on Laurent's stomach, where the muscles are tense but slowly relaxing. Laurent doesn't move to turn around. Damen drops a light kiss beneath one of Laurent's ears, barely more than a touch, and hears the tiny hitch of Laurent's breath.

The purpose of the game comes suddenly, sharply into focus.

"You can ask me for what you want," Damen says quietly.

Laurent's abdominal muscles ripple again. It's like handling a freshly sharpened sword.

"You think I don't know that?"

"I don't know." Damen smooths one palm deliberately over the band of rich material at Laurent's hip. "Do you?"

Laurent turns, and steps away with the turning, getting out from between Damen and the wall. Not far. He's still within an arm's reach. There's patch entirely bare of paint in the centre of his bottom lip, as though he's scraped it clear with his own teeth.

"I prefer you as yourself," Damen says again.

He fetches water and a cloth, and proves it.

Laurent stands still and watchful, accepting, as Damen runs the cloth in broad swipes across his chest, washing away the dusted bronzing powder. Laurent lifts his arms and bares the vulnerable line of his neck, all of his regality falling back onto him like a clean shadow. Damen slows down, luxuriating in it, leaving hot kisses on Laurent's fine, pale shoulders in the cold wake of the cloth. Laurent shivers under his touch, a reaction so small and so fundamental that Damen aches with need.

With the same wet cloth and a pot of cool grease he removes the paint and the kohl from Laurent's face. He's never performed this simple act of service for anyone before, but it's easy enough, and more paint comes away with every gentle swipe until finally Damen lowers the cloth and it's Laurent again. Laurent, blinking at him with eyelashes spiked and wet, paler and sharper and so beautiful that Damen's voice scratches in his throat as he speaks.

"Hello, Your Highness."

"Hello," Laurent says. "Damianos."

No one else says his name like Laurent says it. Damen's friends and family use the familiar form; _Damianos_ is formal, respectful. Except in Laurent's mouth, where it becomes something else.

"I missed you," Damen says.

The moment ripples between them, rich and dark.

"Is that so," Laurent says.

Before Damen can speak to tease him, Laurent presses forward and kisses him with no hesitation, not a single arch look. The kiss is hungry and young and honest.

All of the held-back desire in Damen crashes out and through him in a white wave. He buries a hand in Laurent's hair and uses his other to drag them so tightly together that Damen can feel the hard press of Laurent's cock against his leg, and feel the eager tension as Laurent rises onto his toes. Laurent makes a soft noise into Damen's mouth that skewers Damen all the way through with a hot stab of tenderness.

Damen's hair is still damp from the baths, and he can feel gooseflesh peppering Laurent's bare back. He directs them towards his bed, where they can lie half-buried in the folds of fur blankets, and where Damen can take his time in divesting Laurent of the rest of his costume, in laying him out and murmuring into his skin, not even sure if he means to be heard: _I have missed you beyond anything. I have wanted you every night when you were not here. I could think of nothing else but all the things I would do to you, your body under mine, like this, of your mouth..._

Laurent's hand is at Damen's jaw, pushing, lifting. Damen takes the hint and looks up at him.

There is no stain of colour in Laurent's cheeks, but his blue eyes are half pupil and his chest rises and falls unevenly. For a man as restrained as Laurent, his desire is so obvious that he doesn't need to speak. Speaking is the last thing Damen expects from him.

Laurent says, low and clear, "Sometimes I think I will be ripped apart with it."

He sounds almost plaintive, as though puzzling at something that his formidable mind can't make fit into a larger picture.

Damen feels as though he has been knocked on his back in the practice ring and is trying to recover his air. The gift of Laurent's admission lands in his palms, which burn with the weight of it. He is wild; he wants to do so many things. He wants to conquer a fortress, lay waste to hordes of enemies, deliver the world to Laurent's feet.

For a selfish moment, like a hot stone lying on his chest, he is totally aware of his own power.

But is passes. It's got no place here. Here, now, all he can do is show Laurent just how much pleasure can be poured into one body before it breaks.

"Turn over," he says.

Laurent obeys without a murmur, stretching out on his stomach, cheek resting on his hands. Damen kisses the place between his shoulderblades, a promise, and then slides off the bed. He finds the basin of water he was using before and freshens it from an ewer, finds a cloth that isn't paint-streaked, then brings them to the bed.

This time he washes Laurent's feet, his legs, his buttocks; Laurent's shoulders bow with tension at the trickle of cool water down between the two cheeks.

"Here," Damen says when he's done. "Bend your knees."

A long pause, this time, before Laurent moves as directed. Damen rubs his thumb down the crack, over the private heat of Laurent's entrance. This is something he has done only a handful of times, but he loves the intimacy and totality of it. He wants to give this to Laurent, and to take Laurent's pleasure for himself.

"Really," Laurent says, "I don't--"

Damen's hands coax him into a better position, his weight further back and his knees further spread.

When Damen applies the wetness of his mouth, Laurent swears in Veretian, the words grinding out of him.

Damen licks over him, gentle, and then more insistent, losing himself in the sensation. He listens for the pants of breath and the caught-back words, reads every shift of Laurent's muscles under his hands, chasing with firm jabs of his tongue the moment when Laurent goes boneless and sweetly needy, opening himself to Damen's touch.

Damen pulls away, acutely aware of his own arousal where it's heavy between his legs. His head is ringing.

It takes one false start, one elbow collapsing with the first effort, before Laurent can roll onto his back. In the flushed and panting wreck of his face, Laurent's eyes are like a volley of arrows, soundless and seeking and sharp.

"Oil," Laurent says. "And if you tell me to send a guard for it, I will stab you myself."

"You'll start a war," Damen says.

"I would do worse than that, to have you," Laurent snaps, and then bites down on his own lip so hard that Damen would not be surprised to see blood.

The danger in Laurent's eyes crests; Damen turns away to let him ride it out in privacy, and busies himself with leaning down to fetch the bottle of oil from the box tucked beneath the side of the bed. Laurent is a hundred lessons in the skin of one young man; Damen has never been caught unprepared since that first time.

By the time he sits up again, oil in hand, Laurent's conquered his emotions. He extends an imperious hand and takes the bottle from Damen, then directs Damen to lie on his back. The fabric around Damen's waist came loose and untucked half an age ago, but Damen lifts his hips helpfully so that Laurent can unwind the last fold of it and throw the whole bundle aside.

Laurent tips oil into his palm and coats Damen's cock with motions that are gentle but perfunctory, a man working towards a goal. At the same time, as though he can't help himself, he bends down and sucks a bold mark into the skin of Damen's thigh; Damen hisses and then groans, his cock swelling and throbbing in Laurent's palm. The sensitive skin of his length can feel the heat of Laurent's breath, a brief touch of Laurent's cheek, as though Laurent is no more than curious about the sensation.

Damen's hips jerk without consulting him. Laurent presses him down again with a firm hand and sits up, licking over his own lips, his face drawn with concentration and desire.

Damen fights to focus. "You haven't--you should let me--"

"You're not going to hurt me, Damianos," Laurent says. His breath is coming rapidly.

"At the very least, you're going to feel it tomorrow."

"You presume I don't want to feel it," Laurent says.

Damen gazes up at him, surrendering to the enormity of what he's feeling. Some of it must spill onto his face. He hopes it does.

"I'm past presuming anything with you," he says honestly.

To his relief, Laurent takes it very slowly indeed. Damen has to take double handfuls of the bedclothes when the head of his cock enters Laurent's body.

"Oh," Laurent says, barely audible.

"You feel--"

"Yes." A sword of a smile, there and gone. "I'd forgotten."

He lowers himself further, further, engulfing Damen in pressure at the speed of a shadow creeping over a dial, and Damen's throat closes with the effort of remaining still. Finally Laurent is fully seated; Damen presses both of his thumbs into grooves of muscle above Laurent's hipbones.

"Laurent," he manages. " _Please_."

The smile appears again on Laurent's face, fond and a little startled, and he leans down to kiss Damen with soft, closed lips. His hands, still thinly oil-slicked, cup Damen's face and then skid against Damen's chest as he straightens.

Laurent doesn't ride with vigour and abandon like some lovers Damen has had. He makes small circles and waves with his hips, searching for the best angle, with his head tilted to the side. The line of his neck is like marble. The heat of him, tight and gliding around Damen's cock, is incredible.

It's dreamy, quiet. It sends sparks of building pleasure up Damen's spine and down his legs, until his feet tingle and he's breathing shallowly and he feels like the string of a bow drawn and held, and waiting. He gets distracted from the urgency of his own release, though, by the tiny shivers of Laurent's leg muscles; the soft sounds that are hooked out of Laurent whenever he lowers his weight with particular force, burying Damen's full length inside his body. The disaster of Laurent's hair and the glorious beauty of him as he falls apart before Damen's eyes, like a painting or one of the golden idols built to the gods of old.

Damen grabs hold of Laurent's thighs and digs his fingers into the tense muscle, hard. He wants to kiss his way over lines of bruises there tomorrow. He doesn't want anyone else to ever see Laurent like this, to touch him in this way.

"I need--" Laurent says, strangled, and moves one hand to his own dripping cock. Damen immediately moves a hand to cover it too, their fingers joining and slipping on the hot length.

"Show me," Damen murmurs.

It only takes two ruthless strokes of their tangled hands before Laurent comes, with hardly a sound but a half-opening of his mouth, a prolonged flicker of his eyes. The spasm of it, the sheer sensation of him, brings Damen close to the edge himself. But not quite there.

"All right," Laurent says, when he has his breath back. He takes hold of Damen's hands and moves them to his hips.

"Are you sure?"

Laurent raises his eyebrows.

Damen is shaking with desire, fire churning in his blood and racing to engulf him. But he grins at the permission and simply moves Laurent where he needs him, still buried to the hilt. He struggles to sit further upright, gathering Laurent into his lap and into his arms--the angle changes and Laurent gives a low, shocked gasp, clenching down--and the sound buries itself in Damen's nerves and explodes, overwhelming him with sensation as he shudders to completion.

When his head clears, he has his face pressed to Laurent's neck. He opens his mouth and kisses lazily, wetly, over the tendons there.

Laurent's hand touches the back of Damen's head, the firm pads of his fingers scraping idly over Damen's scalp. He lifts himself carefully away, both of them wincing a little as they separate fully. Damen's back aches and he is slick with sweat. And with other substances.

As if reading his thoughts, Laurent moves to the side of the bed, leans down and pulls the cloth from the basin. He wipes the sticky evidence of his own release from Damen's stomach and chest. Damen closes his eyes and appreciates the moment as an echo of his own actions earlier that night, when he was cleaning the bronzer from Laurent's body.

An abrupt laugh rises in Damen like bubbles in a pot of heated water. He manages to keep it silent, but can't stop his shoulders from shaking.

"What is it?" Laurent gives him a final swipe and then drops the cloth back over the side of the bed.

"That _wig_ ," Damen says.

Laurent raises a hand to his own hair, rubbing strands between two fingers. "If only I had hair the colour of dirt," he says, deadpan.

"I'm looking forward to watching you put it back on again."

"The paint's the tricky part," Laurent says. "It took me weeks to get it right."

Damen snorts, imagining Laurent painstaking and irritated in front of a mirror, scrubbing his mistakes clean and starting again. Constructing himself in secret, as he always does.

"Well, you've bought yourself two days."

"One and a half," Laurent corrects him. "I'll have to loop around and meet Jord and the others on the road."

"And then arrive in state," Damen says.

"Full of apologies," Laurent murmurs. "Pale from my illness."

"As if anyone will be able to tell the difference."

"Tell me about Thalysia," Laurent says.

Damen blinks. Laurent was present for all of the celebrations tonight and is more than clever enough to have taken in the other performances even if he was playing his spy games at the same time. Besides, there's no way that Laurent, who reads widely and furiously and has become a de facto ambassador in his own right to Damen's country, would be unfamiliar with such a major festival in the Akielon calendar.

"What about it?"

Sitting upright against pillows, Laurent wraps an arm around one bent knee. "The story," he says. "Tell me." The difference between this effortless authority and the demure, teasing act he indulged in earlier couldn't be more vast.

"You like stories," Damen says. He adds this fact to the mental mosaic that is Prince Laurent of Vere, which he has been assembling for nearly a year. Which he would be happy to spend his life assembling, collecting piece after colourful piece.

"Everyone likes stories," Laurent says, dismissive, but his eyes are sparkling.

So Damen tells him the first part of the story as it was told to him every year of his childhood: the patience of the goddess, covering the earth step by step in relentless search of her lost daughter, until her doggedness alone forces higher powers to bow and intervene. A story that seemed both fantastical and lovely to a boy growing up with no mother.

"No mention of what the daughter's doing during all of this," Laurent says.

"Falling in love," Damen says.

"In which version?" says Laurent the scholar.

"I always thought she was brave," Damen says. "She's stuck in a strange land, and she manages to find happiness there. She rises to claim a throne."

"And then leaves," Laurent says, "to be with her family."

"And then returns to her husband."

Laurent says nothing. When Damen looks at him, his face is closed-off and careful; after a moment, his throat moves and he swallows. Damen's heart beats faster. He hasn't been paying enough attention.

Laurent says, "Maybe she feels--torn."

"I think that's the whole point," Damen says. "She doesn't have to choose."

"Enough," Laurent says.

Damen's not done. "Not everyone gets the luxury of compromise," he says. "But why wouldn't you, if you could?"

"No. Enough," Laurent says. Something stricken manages to find its way out from beneath the mask of his expression. "In case--I won't. I can't. Not yet."

"Laurent."

"We can discuss it," Laurent says, painfully, "after."

Not tomorrow. After. After Theomedes is dead, and Damen is King, and Laurent has inevitably thrust both the problem of Kastor and a brutally elegant solution into Damen's hands. After Laurent's uncle is defeated, in the large and deadly game that is still being played, and Auguste's line is secure and Laurent is a comfortably spare prince, untethered.

"I hadn't pegged you as superstitious," Damen says.

"I'm not," Laurent says, the words slow enough that Damen goes still in recognition that they have been dragged up from somewhere both deep and private, "exactly. I prefer games of skill, where I can control the outcome. I don't like to play with luck, in case luck decides to play with me."

"But you cheat," Damen says.

Laurent's almost-smile appears. "Yes," he says.

Damen allows himself to cradle the possibility in his mind for a yearning moment: Laurent in Akielos half of every year or more, ambassador and ally and friend. Laurent's edged commentary on affairs of state. His bright and needling company during the bare-branched days, and then his warm body, his drowningly sweet mouth, through every one of the long cold nights.

Laurent is right. To hope after such a future is asking the gods to laugh and throw dice. They will take it one game at a time, and trust only in their own skill.

"How is your nephew?" Damen says, casting out for more neutral ground.

"Alive," Laurent says. For a fleeting moment there's tension, almost exhaustion, in his face: the strain of the four months since they last saw one another. "I--haven't had a chance to thank you. For your part in that."

"Prince Alaire makes two male heirs between your uncle and the throne now," Damen says. But Laurent is shaking his head.

"He's sunk too much time and money into his ambition. He has to keep trying. And in a child, who could yet be left unprotected and open to influence, he will see...opportunity. He can be patient. Accidents happen." Laurent runs a hand through his hair and closes his eyes for a brief moment. _Torn_ , Damen thinks. "I can't sit idle while he builds traps around Auguste and myself. I need to find a way to spring them while they're still half-formed."

Damen tries not to sigh too obviously. He is resigning himself, again, to staying awake for hours of plotting.

But Laurent opens his eyes and gives a quick, brisk shake of head and shoulders. "It can wait," he says.

"Tomorrow," says Damen.

He wouldn't be much use at politics anyway, right now. His limbs are feeling heavy, the urge to move dwindling away. Damen makes himself comfortable on his back in the tangle of blankets with the side of one hand just touching Laurent's fingers. It's a gesture of affection, not an invitation; Laurent shares a bed with the unconscious selfishness of one who does it very seldom, and always keeps himself a little apart.

But Laurent lets out a long and audible breath as he stretches out in the bed, and rolls towards Damen. Then keeps rolling, throwing one leg over Damen's hips and following it with most of his weight.

"What--" Damen says.

He's quieted by Laurent's fingers on his mouth, not lingering, but pressing down hard enough to make the point. Laurent settles himself lying on top of Damen and between his legs, with a bit of wriggling to avoid knees digging against knees. Damen feels his cock twitch in useless but automatic reaction: it's still _Laurent_. But it's long past midnight: if they stay awake long enough for him to do anything about it, they'll be greeting the dawn.

"Hmm." Laurent brushes one of Damen's nipples with his thumb.

"That's optimistic," Damen says with his eyes closed. "Even for you."

" _Especially_ for me," Laurent says, precise.

But he doesn't move any further. It's just cold enough that the heat and the weight of him is welcome rather than unpleasant, and when Damen lifts his arms to wrap them around Laurent's body, Laurent rests his cheek on Damen's chest with the same fastidious caution that Damen has seen in cats kneading a sun-warmed surface.

This is...new.

Damen says nothing for a while. He is almost wary of breathing. He strokes one hand down Laurent's spine and back up again, pleased when small muscles unlock and soften in its wake.

"By the way, Matieu thinks I don't trust you," he says.

"Kastor thinks I'm a cockhungry slut who'd hand you Varenne for the chance to bend over and be fucked breathless," Laurent says, sweet and deadly.

Damen's eyes fly open and his breath chokes out through his nose. "He _said_ that? To you?"

"He said that to a friend, in my hearing," Laurent says, resurrecting the dense, syrupy accent. His hair tickles at the underside of Damen's jaw. "I did not understand, of course. I was a silly musician, a trumped-up pet. I was drunk, and he was speaking so fast. And your language, the words are so _difficult_ \--"

"All right, stop," Damen says, laughing.

Laurent subsides. "My uncle thinks I bedded you to cement an alliance. He assumes the appeal is all based in your armies, with a sideline of prowess between the sheets."

"Are you saying it isn't?"

Laurent lifts his head and looks down at him. His cheeks have turned faintly pink. Damen smiles helplessly; it's one of his favourite things, when he can make that happen.

"He doesn't know how I--how you are," Laurent says. "Or he'd have used it against me by now."

Damen is still getting used to this, the threads of feeling and tension that run underneath even the easiest of their conversations. The wrong word or facial expression now and Laurent will retreat behind the paint and the games, or at least to the other side of the bed.

"How am I?" Damen asks, keeping his tone warm with humour.

"You are an intolerable weakness," Laurent says softly.

The words shimmer between them.

Damen draws him down into a kiss. After a moment Laurent's mouth opens, yielding and soft where nothing else about him is ever yielding or soft. Damen thinks about the leap of the bonfire against a tapestry of stars. Behind his closed eyes he can see the fierce glowing tongues of green and yellow and purple.

"So are you," Damen says, blurred and falling.

The last thing he feels before sleep is the curve of Laurent's smile against his own.


End file.
